Obama's Beer Summit Begins

7/30/2009 7:40 PM PDT

Obama's Beer Summit Begins

In an attempt to calm racial tensions, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden threw back beers with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the man who arrested him -- Police Sergeant James Crowley -- near the Oval Office today.

A national debate on racial profiling occurred after Crowley arrested Gates for disorderly conduct during a burglary investigation at the professor's home.